


In My Time Of Dying

by TheDragonAndTheHare



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Mild Gore, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-14
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 11:56:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/638656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDragonAndTheHare/pseuds/TheDragonAndTheHare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta goes over his life in what he thinks are his final moments in the arena...</p>
            </blockquote>





	In My Time Of Dying

**Author's Note:**

> Uploading some things from ff.net. Enjoy :)

I plunge my way blindly through the bush, leading the way despite the tracker-jacker poison messing with my sense of direction. The water from the lake is now dripping off me as blood, getting in my eyes and blurring my vision, but I keep going. I can hear Cato struggling and cursing behind me, a little way off as he's falling behind. I struggle on for a few more minutes, and vaguely wonder if I'm going in circles before I find last night's camp site. I see that the area has been cleared of the insects, the nest split open, as they must have all followed us that ran to the lake, but I barely take this fact in.

I see Katniss leaning over Glimmer's dead body - which has gone stiff from all the bites - struggle to retrieve the bow and arrows from beneath it. She has similar bites to mine, three in all, and she looks at me with startled eyes as I stumble onto the scene. She looks like a scared animal, eyes wide as it realizes its end is near. I look behind me as I hear another curse come from Cato.

"Run!" I shout at her. "Go!"

She struggles to get to her feet, but soon she takes off, as fast as she can, with the bow and arrows thankfully in her hands. Cato thunders out from the underbrush just in time to see her run. He suddenly looks quite terrifying, and I know that it must be the poison that distorts my vision of him, because he is suddenly looming over me, his face changing and melting away to reveal something awful.

"You let her get away!" He hisses angrily, and the sound reaches my ears garbled. I see the glint of his sword in my swimming vision, and he swings it at me violently. He misses, and I fall back onto the ground hard, the wind knocked from me. "It's time I killed you!"

I don't notice he's cut my leg until I tried running – the warm trickle of blood alerts me as I get up, but the pain takes a full five seconds before my leg is suddenly searing. Cato walks off, smug look on his face as he is clearly satisfied with the job he's done. The hulking figure slowly melts away, and I'm left on my own. I know I'm done – it's only a matter of time. The mixture of tracker-jacker poison and blood loss is making me hard to discern what is real and what isn't – the stream is running red with my blood, but I can't have bled that much, surely?

I follow the river anyway, as I fear the return of that Cato monster. I hobble along, my thoughts turning to Katniss. I hope with all my heart that my actions have lead to her life being spared a little while longer. My life is worth ending short to ensure hers doesn't.

My sense of time slips away, and I slip helplessly in the mud. I look behind me – I've barely gone more than one hundred metres from where I started. There's a buzzing noise all around me, like the intense hum of an insects wings', but greatly intensified to the point where I try mauling off my ears. But it's no use. They're crawling all over my arms, my legs, coming out of my wound… And then I black out for what must have been a few hours, because now it's dark. Looking around, I realize I haven't fallen in the best of places. I'm out in the open, though I've thankfully haven't strayed far from the stream.

The pain in my leg is throbbing away, and I can barely move it, let alone stand. But my thoughts don't stray far from Katniss. Is she okay? Did Cato go after her after he left me for dead? Where is she now? I half drag, half crawl from the mud bank on the side of the stream into a clump of bushes that cover the presence of a boulder. There is a sizeable gap big enough for me to lie down comfortably and the ground is still close enough to the stream for the dirt to be mud.

I set about on my last defense: camouflage. And then I lay there, waiting for the inevitable end, and all I can think about is Katniss. _Katniss..._ If only you knew none of it was a ploy! I feel like shouting it, knowing it's all going to end soon.

I lay here, slowly bleeding to death, and think about what they say when you die: that your whole life flashes before your eyes. And it does… sort of. Soon, I'm not sure if I was drifting in and out of a dream, or if it was actually happening – moments playing out in my mind, moments I'm almost reliving. I can remember, with almost stunning detail, the day I met Katniss on the first day of school. Two braids in her hair instead of one, that pretty dress she wore, and her voice when she sang! I can hear it again, I'm watching her again as she sings the Valley song.

But then I drift back to reality before she finishes, and I'm staring up at the dark expanse of sky with not a sound to hear. My tears well up, and I almost cry at the loss… But then I drift back into another memory, and she's singing again, with her father this time. My father hadn't been lying when he said that he had a singing voice like a bird. Katniss had certainly inherited that gift, though I hadn't heard her sing since her father died. There's a smile on her face, and I struggle to remember what memory this is. Mrs. Everdeen then blocks my view, and I try looking around her to see Katniss again. I can remember the feeling of burning on my hands, and then I remember – this is the time my father took me to see her because I burnt my hands as I tried to take a bread tray out of the oven, and only being eight or so at the time, I'd forgotten about the oven mitts.

Katniss's smile and her beautiful voice had completely driven the pain from my mind. And it does again now, until I wake up again. But thankfully, reality is short, and I dive back into another dream, another memory. So many go by, each one lasting just a few minutes, just a snap shot of my life. I briefly wonder during the dark periods whether I'm hallucinating from the poison, but I don't care.

There goes by the moment I saved Katniss with the bread! Seeing her all skin and bones led me to the drastic consequences that I suffered that night. I could hardly let my future wife starve! The grateful look on her face when I threw her the bread was nearly seared into my brain. A connection had finally been made between us; I could hardly let it go, though we had little contact. We kept to groups, to ourselves. It was unusual enough that a town kid and helped one from the Seam, but I could hardly care. I could see the hope rekindle in her, something that had died with her father. And to know that I done that, that I'd help her come back from the brink… the profoundness of it all had been great.

And then I had enough hope that maybe we could both sail through the Reapings unharmed, and that when we'd both become old enough I could propose… but of course, that wasn't going to happen now. One or both of us are going to end up dead because of these Games, and I hoped it wouldn't be me that won.

I encounter my first bad memory close to dawn: the day of the Reaping. My heart froze when I heard Katniss shout for her sister; shout for her voluntary right to be a Tribute. I would have done the same in an instant if one of my younger brothers had been chosen. But then I was, anyway. I cried hard in my parents arms. I cried because I was leaving my family. I cried because I knew I was going to die. I cried because I knew that Katniss was going to die. I felt my heart clench at the thought, knowing that she may die by my own hands. But I vowed in that moment that I wouldn't. I couldn't. I'd die first, I would die protecting her.

And I did.

I slip into another memory as the sun rises. I'm discussing tactics with Haymitch in one of our private sessions. I confess to him about Katniss, and then he comes up with the "star-crossed lovers" strategy to gain support and sponsors. I don't protest, knowing I want Katniss to know before it's all over. The memory drizzles into the one about our interviews. I had the audience from the start, had them laughing. Haymitch said it was important to keep the audience happy. I go on a little story about the showers here, and I ask Ceaser if I still smelled like roses. The audience cracked up with laughter as we circled each other while trying to sniff the other's armpits. Keep them happy, I hear Haymitch in my head, and I've certainly done my job.

I freeze up a little when the subject turned to girls.

" _You're a handsome lad; you must have a girl waiting for you at home?_ " I shook my head at Ceaser's question, but my resulting blush indicates to him that there is someone. He continues probing, asking me if I'll marry her when I make it home.

" _Winning won't help_ ," I say sadly. You can hear the audience make a sad ' _aww_.'

" _Why not_?"

The blush in my cheeks grows darker and I look down at the ground sadly before I stammer out my answer: " _Because she came here with me._ " I had certainly hit one home with that, and I didn't even have to lie about it. Watching the recap later, I see that the screen goes between me and Katniss: it's the first time I've seen any emotion on her face in a while. She really couldn't believe what I'd just said.

But it was all true.

 _I love you Katniss Everdeen, and I'm sorry I'll never get to tell you_ , I think sadly. I drift in and out memories all day, and I ignore the pain, the hunger and the heat. I think about Katniss and her singing, and that smile I haven't seen in a while. I don't move a muscle. I lay there, caked in dry mud, invisible to all unless I reveal myself. The poison continues to course through my veins, and my leg continues to bleed. But still, I don't move. I know death is near. I don't pay much attention to the sky at night, especially during the anthem. I missed the one the night before – there have been no deaths today. Cato must be disappointed.

I'm just drifting off to sleep again when I hear the announcement: there's been a rule change. If both the tributes from a district survive until the end, they can both be declared winners. I try to remember whose left, but I don't get much farther than me and Katniss. But it won't matter; the end is near for me. I allow myself to sleep once the announcement is over.

I lie as still as ever when I wake; I don't even open my eyes. I hear someone coming closer, and I vaguely wonder if it's Cato, come to finish me off. There is the splashing of water as the person makes their way down the stream, and then the squelch of mud as they walk out of it. I wonder, is it Death, come to claim me? I will go gladly. I hear someone calling my name, quietly…

Surely it's Death?

"Come to finish me off, have you?" I say aloud, and I can tell it's a person I've startled, by the way they've jumped.

"Peeta!" She whispers quietly.

"Don't step on me," I mutter deliriously.

"Where are you?" She says, and I frown. If not Death, then surely she's an Angel? Angel's are supposed to be beautiful, and she is speaking with Katniss's voice, and Katniss is beautiful.

_Katniss!_


End file.
